Show VALIANT N ta 9 HALLS ERNINIE rivea pw LAUREN TOUT 43 co cowye 0 BY CY o boada SYNOPSIS john valiant a rich society favorite suddenly denly that the fouad nat a llant nt corporation Po ration which his father founded and which was vms the principal source of his wealth has kas failed lie ile voluntarily turns f ON L r his private fortune to the receiver or the corporation CHAPTER ill III continued to ke ime outside oot side all that light and color and aird comfort and pleasure would hum aid sparkle on just the same though he ke was mas no longer within the circle of f its effulgence slaving per baas he thought with a twisted smile at sone some so ne tawdry taudry occupation that called for no experience to pay for a meal in some se second condrate rate restaurant and a pallet in some shabby genteel ball hall bedroom till his clothes were replaced 6 15 Ill fitting hand me downs till by wretched gradations he arrived finally at the status of the dime seat in the gallery and five cent cigars there was aas one way nay back it lay through the hackneyed gateway of marriage youth comeliness and fine linen in the world orld he knew were a fair exchange for wealth any day cutet tvr for cutlet the satiric phrase ran through his als mind why not others did so and aa as tor for himself it perhaps need be no question of plain and ed millions there was ha katharine tharine pargo fargo in his heart john valiant was aware by thase subtle signs which men and women omen alike distinguish that while katharine fargo loved first and foremost her ker own wonderful person he had been an easy second in her regard jorr john valiant looked down at the bulldog squatted on the floor his eyes shining in the dimness A little hot ripple had run over him not on sour lour life chum he said no shameless barter there be other things besides money and social post tion in this doddering old world after all I 1 were going to begin something for ourselves it its only raising cab ur bages and were going to stand it w any baby aching the nurse never held our noses when we took our castor oil A 11 was folded down that old bright page finis bad had been beed written to the rose colored chapter and even as be he told himself be he was conscious of a new rugged something that had been slowly dawning him a sense of courage even of zest and a furious hatred of the self pity that had wrenched him even tor for a moment he lie turned from the window picked up his letters and followed by the dog went ent slowly up another flight to bis his room 0 4 0 0 0 0 lie ile tore open the letters abstracted ly the usual dinner card or two a tailor a spring announcement a chronic serial from an exclamatory marble quarrying company a quarterly statement of a club house committee ahe I 1 he last two to missives bore a nondescript lk 1 k one was small with the name of a legal firm in its corner the other was largish corpulent and heavy of stout manila paper and pore down donn one side a gaudy procession of post age stamps proclaiming that it had been registered what 8 in that I 1 wonder he said sak to himself and then with ith a smile at IV ca As 5 F for or a long time john valla valiant nt sat motionless onless lees tre tle opened letter in his H hand staring at nothing r the speculation opened the smaller envelope t sir began the letter in the he most uncompromisingly conventional of typewriting dear sir please find wt 1 I it title deed a memorandum opened la in your name b the late john valiant some 3 ears before his death it was bis his desire that the services indicated in connection with this estate should con fa dinue till tuf thip date we hand aou ou beT herewith eIth our check for 2360 0 two hundred hundred and thirty six dollars and twenty cents the balance in your ta fa vor for which please send receipt and oblige yours very truly emerson and ball enclosure lie turned to the memorandum it showed a sizable initial deposit against which was as entered a cerles series of annual tax payments with minor disbo disbursements rs e J credited to inspection and care I 1 the tax receipts were pinned I 1 to the account I 1 the larger wrapper contained an un sealed envelope across which was as written in faded ink and in an enfa millar dashing slanting handwriting his own name the envelope contained a creased yellow parchment from between whose olds folds there clumped and fluttered flattered down donn upon the floor a long flatfish flattish object wrapped in a paper a newspaper clipping and a letter puzzled he unfolded the crackling thing in his hands why be he said halt half aloud it a it a a deed made over to me he lie overran it swiftly part ot at an old colony grant a plantation in virginia twelve hun dred odd acres given under the hand of a vice regal governor in the six century I 1 bad had no idea titles in the united states went back so far as that ills eye fled to the end it was my fathers what could he have wanted oan onan o an estate in virginia it must have come into bis his hands in the course of business he lie picked up the newspaper clipping it was worn and broken in the folds as it if it bad had been carried for months in a pocketbook it will interest readers ot of this is section of virginia the paragraph paragraph began to learn from a recent transfer received for record at the county clerks clerk a office that damory court has passed to mr air john valiant minor he ile turned the paper over and found a date it had been printed in the year of the transfer to himself when he was six years old the year his father had died ajohn john valiant minor the son of the former owner there are few indeed who do not recall the tragedy with which in the public mind the estate is connected the tact fact moreover that this old homestead has been left in its present state t tor for as Is well known know n the house has remained with all its contents and fur nish ings untouched to rest during so long a term of years unoccupied could nat ot of course tall fail to be commented on and this circumstance alone has perhaps tended to keep alive a melan choly story which may well vell be for gotten I 1 he read the elaborate rather stilted phraseology in the twenty year old pa per with a wondering interest an old house he mused with a bad name probably be he could rit sell it and maybe nobody would ever live in it that would explain why it remained EO so long unoccupied why there are no records of rentals probably the land was starved and run down its it s an offset off set to the hall bedroom idea at any rate I 1 be he said to himself humorously it holds out an escape from the noble army of rent payers when my twenty eight hundred Is gone I 1 could live down there a landed proprietor and by the same mark an honorary colonel and raise the cabbages I 1 was talking about eh chum abile you stalk rabbits how does that strike you he lie lauga laughed d whimsically he lie john valiant a llant of ew york first nighter at its theaters all ail fellow well met in its club corridors and welcome diner at any one of at a hundred brilliant glass and silver twinkling supper tables en bombed on the wreck of a virginia plantation a would ba be country gentleman on in ln automobile and next to nothing a earl ear he ile bethought himself of the fallen letter and possessed himself ct cf it quickly it lay with ith the tion side down on it was written in the same band which had addressed the other envelope for my son john valiant when ha he reaches the age ago of twenty five that then bad had been written by bis his father and he hap hal died nearly twenty years agol ago he ile broke the seal with a strange feeling as it walking in come some familiar thoroughfare he had sturn bled on a ancl anc sunken tombstone when you read this my eon son you will have come to man a estate it Is curious to think that anis black black ink may be faded to gray and this white white paper yellowed just from lying waiting so long but strangest of all is to think that you yourself whose brown head hardy hardly tops this desk will be as tall 1 I hope as it I 1 how I 1 wonder nonder what boj will look like then and shall 1 I th tho eal teal real 1 I 1 I mean be peering dovw your strong broad shoulder as yi y i read who knows wise men bare hate dreamed such a thing possible and I 1 am not a bit wise john you wil will not have forgotten that you are a valiant vallant dut but you are also a Nir virginian ginian will you have dis covered this tor for your yourself here Is the deed to the land where I 1 and my father and his father and many many more gallants Vali Val ants lants before them were bom born sometime perhaps you will know why you are john valiant of new york in ste d of john valiant of damory court cot rt I 1 can not tell you myself because it is too true a story and I 1 have fm fut gotten how to tell any but fairy tales where everything happens right where the prince marries the beautiful princess and they llva live happily together ever aner after you may never care to live at damory court maybe the life you will know BO so well by the time you read this will have welded you to itself if so u well ell and good then leave tae the old place to your son but there Is such a thing as racial habit and the call of blood and I 1 know there ther Is such a thing too aa as fate late every ever man carries his fate on a ri rl band about bis his neck so the moslem put it it was my fate to go away and I 1 know now since distance Is not made by miles alone that I 1 myself shall never see damory court again but life Is a strange n heel that goes round and round and comes back to the same point again and again and it may be your fate to go back thea perhaps you will cry a 01 A she was the first to recover you did look so Funn funnel J but oh not on the old white bears skin rug never again with me holding your small email small hand wishing house wishing house I 1 where are you and this old od parchment deed will answer here I 1 am master blaster here I 1 ami ah ali we are only children after all claing out our plays I 1 have bad had many toys but 0 john john the ones I 1 treasure most are all in the never never land landl CHAPTER IV A valiant of virginia for a long time john valiant sat motionless the opened letter in his band hand staring at nothing he bad had the sensation spiritually of a traveler awakened with a rude shock amid wholly unfamiliar he was trying to re put two and two together his ills father bad had been southern born yes be he bad had knon that but he bad had known noth lg ing whatever of his father a earby days or of his forebears since he had been old enough to wonder about such things he had oad no one to ask questions of phrases of the letter fan ran through his mind sometime perhaps you will know why 3 ou are john valiant of new york instead of john valiant of damory court 0 1 I cannot tell you myself there was some tragedy then that had blighted the place some melancholy scoty atol y as the clipping put it he ile bent over the leed spread out upon the table following with his fin ger the long line of transfers to john Val he muttered what odd spelling hobert robert Val yant with out the e here in 1730 the y begins to be V 1 there was something strenuous and appealing in the long line of dates valiant always a va llant how they held on to there a never a break A curious pride newborn new born and self conscious was dawning in him he ile was descended from ancestors who bad had been no weaklings wea klings A valiant bad had settled on those acres under a royal governor before the old frontier fighting waa was over end the indians had sullenly retired to the westward the sons of those who had braved sea and savages had bowed their strong bodies and their stronger hearts to raze the forests and turn the primeval jungles into golden planta eions there stole into his mood an aery suggestion of intention why should the date assigned tor for that deed deeds s delivery have been the very day on which he had elected poverty here was a foreordination as pointed as the index finger of a guidepost guide post 0 every man carries his fate he be repeated on a about his neck chum do you believe in fate late for answer the bulldog cocking an alert eye on bis his master discontinued his occupation a conscientious if un successful mastication of the ho cattish flattish packet that bad had fallen from the folded deed and with much solicitous tall tail wagging brought the sodden thing in bis his mouth and put it into the out stretched clied hand his ills master unrolled the pulpy wad and extricated the object it had enclosed an old fashioned iron door key 0 0 0 0 0 0 after a time valiant throat thrust tha the kv into bis his pocket and rising went to a trunk that lay jay against the wall searching in a a portfolio he took out a small old fashioned photograph much battered and soiled it bad had been cut from a larger group and the name of the photographer had been erased f from ra the he h back he set it upright on therides the desk k and bending forward looked long a at J the face it disclosed it was the only picture he bad had ever possessed of his father he turned and looked into the glass above the dresser the features were the same eyes brow lips and strong waving hair but for its time stains the photograph might have been one of himself taken yesterday CHAPTER V on the red road the green mid may V virginian Ir afternoon was arched with a eky sky as blue aa as the tiles of the temple of heaven and steeped in a wash of sun I 1 light as yellow as gold nothing in all the springy landscape but looked warm and opalescent and inviting ex capt a tawny bull that from across a barred fence corner switched a lent tall tail in silence and glowered sul lenly at the big motor baited halted motion less at te the side of the twisting road curled wormlike worm like in the driver drivers a seat with his chin on his knees john valiant sat with his eyes upon the distance for an hour ha he had whirred whirled through that wondrous shimmer of at color with a flippant loitering breeze in his face sweet from the crimson clover that poured and rooted over the roadside chum old man said valiant vallant with hla his arm about the bulldog bulldogs a neck if it those color photograph chaps bad had shown us this we simply t have believed it would we such scenery beats the roads were we re used to what he wound his strong fingers in a choking grip in the scruff of the as a chipmunk chattered by on the low stone wall no you don t you cannibal he hes a a jolly lit tie Us beggar and he doesn doean t deserve being eaten I 1 he ile filled bis his bri briar arwood wood pipe and drew in great breaths ot of the fragrant incense what a pity you don t smoke chum you miss such a lot after a time he be shook himself and knocked the red core from the pipe bowl against bis his boot heel I 1 bate hate to start he confessed halt half to the dg dog and halt to himself to leave any thing so beautiful a as this however on an with the dance by the road map the village canet be far now so long mr air bull built he ile clutched the self starter but there was only a protestant wheeze the car declined to budge climbing down he cranked vigorously the motor turned over with a surly grunt of remonstrance and after a tentative throb throb coughed and stopped dead something was wrong with a sigh he flung hung off his tweed teed je jr ket donned a smudgy jumper opened bis his tool too box and with a glance at his wrist wristwatch watch which told him it was three 0 clock threw up the monsters monster a hood and went ent bitterly to work at halt half past three the investigation had got as tar far as the lubricator at tour four a 0 clock the bulldog had given it up and gone nosing afield at half halt past four john valiant lay flat en cn bis his back like some disreputable stevedore ste vadore alternately tinkering with refractory valves and cursing the obdurate |